Before teaming up with Green, Murphy …

Before teaming up with Green, Murphy had already made fair pay for college athletes one of his pet causes. Starting in March 2019, his office released three reports under the title “Madness Inc.” highlighting what Murphy views as structural inequalities undergirding high-profile college sports. The reports focused, respectively, on: how small a chunk of the estimated $14 billion in annual revenue generated by college sports filters to scholarship athletes; the tendency at top programs to prioritize sports over academics, sometimes to a scandalous degree; and the lack of guaranteed health care and scholarships for players who suffer career-threatening injuries. Murphy has also highlighted the disparity in graduation rates between white and Black athletes, and for both Green and Murphy, the fight for what they see as fair compensation is very much a part of the larger fight for social and racial justice.